TWISTERS
Theaters

The thing about Twisters is that it works better as a traditional, character-driven melodrama with a slight Oklahoma drawl than it does as a sequel to 1996's box office hit, the groundbreaking special effects-filled extravaganza Twister. Fresh off of the Academy Award-winning Minari, director Lee Isaac Chung is at home working with the emotional nuances of individuals dealing with the colossal ramifications of the devastation left in the wake of an inexplicable natural disaster. That is squarely in the center of his wheelhouse.

But as the director of a fast-paced, science-based adventure yarn? For all his cinematic virtuosity, Chung is not Jan de Bont, the creative force behind Speedand the original Twister. As pretty as everything may look in this sequel, other than a thunderously ferocious prologue introducing the main character Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and a rather lovely set piece that begins in a small-town rodeo and quickly moves to a dilapidated motel's empty swimming pool, much of the action is oddly uneventful.

Don't get me wrong. This can be entertaining, and Chung is far too talented to deliver anything close to a total stinker. He's a painterly filmmaker, and his use of cutting-edge effects to bring all the weather-related madness to life has an austere majesty that is like something out of a J. M. W. Turner or John Constable masterwork. Chung is also excellent at mining painful emotional injuries, digging through issues of trauma, grief, and self-accusatory guilt with consummate skill.

It also helps that he has Glen Powell starring alongside Edgar-Jones. As recent entries in his filmography like Top Gun: Maverick, Anyone But You, and Hit Man clearly showcase, Powell is a charisma-generating dynamo, a singular talent who lights up the screen from the first second he enters the frame. While he's certainly not stretching himself here, Powell nonetheless delivers a robust, masculine performance that's so intoxicatingly sweltering that there were multiple occasions on which I couldn't help but blush.

If only the rest of the diverse and extraordinary ensemble were as well utilized. Anthony Ramos fares the best, mainly because he has other reasons to be around than trying to get closer to Edgar-Jones, but he's still more or less relegated to the status of Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle (and even that is pushing it). As for the rest, Sasha Lane of American Honey and Hearts Beat Loud fame is here to be quirkily cutting edge and nothing more; the camera looks adoringly at Love Lies Bleeding breakout star Katy O'Brian even though they have zero to do of importance; Brandon Perea, so memorable in Nope, has like one good scene and that's it; and I truly have no idea what David Corenswet and Maura Tierney are even doing here (other than picking up a quick and easy paycheck).

Then there is Edgar-Jones. There are times when the Where the Crawdads Sing star showcases her massive talents with astonishing grace and emotive specificity. Scenes where her character navigates through her pent-up grief stuck in my gut. I also loved a scene between her and Tierney in which the latter, portraying her attentive mother, craftily maneuvers her daughter to reignite long-buried passions for science and problem-solving.

But scenes where Edgar-Jones is supposed to be falling for Powell? Or others where her character's determination and resolve are put to the test and she's forced to spring into action? Moments of gleeful levity or dumbstruck awe when taking in Nature's seductively beautiful and destructive majesty? Here Edgar-Jones comes up frustratingly short. I didn't buy any of it, and considering the stakes as fleshed out in Joseph Kosinski's (Only the Brave) original story and Mark L. Smith's (The Midnight Sky) screenplay, this is an issue I couldn't put in the rearview mirror and forget about.

And what is the story? Kate is a former storm chaser who has been convinced to return to her Oklahoma home by former college classmate Javi (Ramos) to help him test a state-of-the-art weather analysis system that could help them figure out how to better track tornadoes and thus save countless lives. While in Oklahoma, she encounters self-proclaimed "tornado wrangler" Tyler Owens (Powell) and his ragtag group of philanthropic, science-loving do-gooders. One thing leads to another, and Kate finds herself more inclined to work with Owens than with Javi. It is only their collective desire to help the helpless that ultimately brings the trio together to save lives and maybe even discover how to eradicate a tornado before it can do any lasting damage.

I'm not going to say the original Twister is one of the all-time greats. It's not. But de Bont's movie is fun. It also moves like lightning, isn't afraid to talk about climate change, and allows genuine romantic chemistry to develop between its stars Helen Hunt and the late, great Bill Paxton. The whole thing is a goofy cartoon, but that doesn't make any less of an entertaining thriller.

While Chung's sequel is emotionally deeper, it also refuses to mention the words "climate change" or even allude in the smallest way to humanity's part in making these storms more powerfully destructive in the 28 years since the first film's release. And even with Powell's intoxicating majesty, there is precious little romantic chemistry between him and Edgar-Jones. It's all strangely sexless, which makes Tyler's growing infatuation with Kate unforgivably meaningless.

Twisters has its moments. The opening packs a major wallop, and I couldn't help but happily chuckle during the climax when Chung transforms a traditional one-screen movie house into an almost entirely outdoor theater space complete with a proscenium arch, at the center of which is a full-on assault on a Cat-5 tornado. But stuff like that didn't stick with me as I hoped it would. Much like a destructive storm that blows itself out with nary a discernible rhyme or reason, all this sequel left in its wake was a metaphorical mess that left me sadly despondent.

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